Solid ink or phase change ink printers conventionally receive ink in a solid form, either as pellets or as ink sticks. A feed mechanism delivers the solid ink to a heater assembly, where the ink is melted into a liquid state for jetting onto a receiving medium.
Solid ink or phase change ink printers conventionally receive ink in a solid form and convert the ink to a liquid form for jetting onto a receiving medium. The printer receives the solid ink either as pellets or as ink sticks in a feed chute. With solid ink sticks, the solid ink sticks are either gravity fed or spring loaded through a feed channel of the feed chute toward a heater plate. The heater plate melts the solid ink into its liquid form. In a printer that receives solid ink sticks, the sticks are either gravity fed or spring loaded into a feed channel and pressed against a heater plate to melt the solid ink into its liquid form. U.S. Pat. No. 5,734,402 for a Solid Ink Feed System, issued Mar. 31, 1998 to Rousseau et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,861,903 for an Ink Feed System, issued Jan. 19, 1999 to Crawford et al., describe exemplary systems for delivering solid ink sticks into a phase change ink printer.
An ink stick for use in a solid ink feed system of a phase change ink jet printer has an ink stick body with a first end surface and a second end surface. The first and second end surfaces have non-planar contours that are complements of one another. In particular embodiments, the complementary shapes of the first and second end surfaces are such that the second end surface of an ink stick in the ink stick feed system nests with the first end surface of an adjacent ink stick in the feed system. Such nesting blocks movement of the adjacent ink sticks with respect to each other to control skewing of the ink sticks as they move along the ink stick feed channel.
A method of feeding two or more solid ink sticks in an ink stick feed channel of a phase change ink jet printer includes inserting first and second ink sticks into the feed channel. The first ink stick includes a leading end surface, a trailing end surface, and a trailing nesting element formed in the trailing end surface. The second ink stick includes a leading end surface, a trailing end surface, and a leading nesting element formed in the leading end surface. The first and second ink sticks are positioned in the feed channel so that the leading end surface of the second ink stick is adjacent the trailing end surface of the first ink stick, and the leading nesting element of the second ink stick is nested with the trailing nesting element of the first ink stick.